…May you take roots in the land of your forefathers; this is a Tigrigna blessing uttered upon every child and young person who has done something to satisfy the expectations of their elders…Adi aboki teteKeli…I cried the last time I heard the saying because it just sounded impossible…I couldn’t have been farther away from the land of my forefathers at that precise moment (not physically…geographical proximity was just abut the only distance I had bridged…)
It was in 2007…I was in Aksum, on my way to Shimelba refugee camp and it was an elderly Tigrayan man… I was with people from the BBC world service and the gentleman was surprised to hear me speak to him in Tigrigna… he blessed me with the blessings that my own grandfather would have and it reminded me of the last time I saw my grandmother in 2001. There is a picture of me, my daughter, my mum and my granny taken then, fond memories of a time that would never comeback… my grandmother is gone… my daughter doesn’t remember a thing of the visit, all I have is a picture of four generations of women smiling away at a camera… and the possibility of taking roots in the land of my forefathers is even more unattainable today than it ever was… and I am followed by a whole generation of young men and women who are also not going to be rooted anywhere… much less in the land of their forefathers…
It is this that I would like to see at the heart of what our politicians, intellectuals and strategists, are addressing right now… the land that our forefathers blessed us to take roots upon… the land that our big brothers and sisters died dreaming about… the land that we eagerly sought to define, but is vomiting its very children out…wrenching its own heart and scattering it across the dessert and into the deep dark sea and to the cold shores of alien lands. It is a whole sale uprooting… roots, branch leaves and all… soon there will be nothing left to uphold the once proud nation that stood up for itself…against all odds…
Where once the corridors of power were made to accept the right of Eritreans to be… today the passages to almost every refugee camp in the African continent tell the tragic conclusion of that epic tale of a vision that created a nation out of an impossible dream. Today the vision has become the corrupted replica of every African failure. The visionaries have become the very embodiment of everything that wasn’t supposed to be and their offspring custodians of an unending nightmare that gets even more bloodcurdling with each recurrence.
Today an Eritrean mother celebrates her son getting as far away from Eritrea as his feet, an overpriced camel, a hapless dingy and any compartment of a lorry big enough to hold on to would take him. For her daughters she prays that pregnancy and the birth of a healthy but unwanted baby would be the worst fate that befalls them…for the alternative is unmentionable diseases and unimaginable trauma. Just whose curse are we reaping?
We have managed to become a nation of dispossessed urchins… who sing the accomplishment of our ‘ancestors’ as though it was but mere fairy tale from countless generations back. As if it wasn’t only yesteryear that countless young men and women determined to self determine… today young people twice as many, who are their mirror image have only got a choice between a hopeless death and a hapless life to determine between… and they do their determining with a sense of urgency that makes the sluggish reaction rate of the people who are determining a solution for all this completely unbearable to watch….
What is ironic is that; at the very moment when young Eritreans are risking everything in sinking boats that have no hope of taking anyone anywhere… their older compatriots have successfully launched their ‘sailing boats’ (what some have dabbed the National Conference) and are telling them to come aboard when they are ready… them on the ‘sailing’ boat have the luxury of determining whether they would fight the injustice against them in the sinking boats, by organizing themselves on minimum or maximum agendas… from fronts or parties… through ethnic, religious or ideological groupings… peaceably or forcefully … from Addis or Paris? Through pen names or passport names… the choice is endless and the cost is always shouldered by others… option one inconveniences them slightly more than option 2001 so the latter is preferable….there is no urgency… there is no need to make hefty sacrifices… there is no call to vacate cocoon land just to rescue the hapless boat people…
If they are threatening to send them back from Libya the UNHCR will have to do something about it, perhaps the civic organisations will alert them… if they are incarcerated in nameless prisons in Egypt… someone out there is better placed in raising the alarm over their plight… if they are being carved by knives in the quest to steal vital organs out of them… this hardly makes it into the agenda of those with lofty acronyms… whose endless meetings, conferences and festivals will culminate in loftier slogans…
… When are we going to raise our game above the parapet of those with the luxury of endless options and combinations of options all with similar results? When are we going to work out that ours is a one option game?… we do or we die… we rescue or we harm… we do right or do wrong… there is no margin of error there is no experiments and there are no rehearsals and dry runs…the message that our politicians in the opposition don’t seem to get is that there is no time to loose…. We either rescue Eritrea now or we become the generation that gained and lost the whole thing all in a series of bad gambles. The option of dipping your hand into the sea and either catching a fish or washing it clean is a lazy myth…if you dip your hand into this sea you either throttle the shark or it swallows you (sailing boat and all). A more fitting metaphor is that of the chira nebri … you should never tamper with a tiger’s tail but if you do… you should never contemplate loosening your grip…
…that is why an experimental National Conference where we make tentative moves at working together, and then celebrate our success, is not an option for us… neither is an alliance that is a marriage of convenience that is not expected to bear fruits worthy of the union… nor military options that bate on options that would make a confirmed gambler tremble… what we need is a resolute determination to set the goal and march straight at it… no gimmickry… no cheap propaganda… pure unadulterated resolve to be prepared to get to the bottom of things that continue to hamper us and reduce our matured politicians to name-calling each other in an endless display of mud slinging that leaves them too exhausted to do the real work.
The public should begin to call for higher stakes and not settle for the mini bars, that the politicians have relegated the whole struggle to… politicians should be measured in terms of their effectiveness as measured against the steep slope that we are all having to climb… it is not good enough to maintain acronyms… coin slogans and mint crests… a leader leads… they don’t postulate, suggest or hypothesise… they don’t experiment using an entire generation as a guinea pig… they don’t gamble with the plight of the people as a collateral… No it is no longer good enough to be content that you saved your organisation from disintegrating (by the skin of its teeth) and the Alliance from collapsing by reneging on the pledge to make strides to rescue Eritrea…
The half-full-half-empty argument and the ‘new and emerging’ excuse may have worked in previous years… half-full is still not full and the ‘new and emerging’ have to mature and materialise sooner or later… and now is the time to judge our trees by their fruit… beyond the empty slogans, the lofty acronyms and cheesy military communiqués are tattered organisations, with tiered leaders and disillusioned following… this is what is at the bottom of our organisations (without exception!) and if we mean business this is the root that needs healing.
Comments
Be it half full or half empty, one big step in the history has been made in the reconciliation of the willing Eritrean people.
The unwilling has woken up from their dream before their aim was accomplished.
- Some were/are Jihadists (Arab Supremacy)
- Some were Ba'athists (Arab Supremacy by other means)
- Some were Isaias' Choir Boys
- Some were Isaias' Errand Boys
- Some were Isaias' Hatchet Men
- Some were/are day-dreaming Marxist/ Leninist/Maoists
- The average age of their members is 45 or more (speculative)
- The are all as proud and nostalgic as those Eritrean Askaries who marched to Libya with the Italian Army
- They each have open/hidden religious/regional/ethnic visions for their "Eritrea"
- They each pretend to be born-again Democrats
- Compared to The Man, the Mafia Capo in Asmara, they all look as if they are members of the flat-Earth Society
The addis meeting will be a complete waste of time and failure. The opposition groups need to learn to work together before they attempt to govern Eritrea. They need to clean their acts before they attempt to clean the dirt in Eritrea.
Worse, the opposition has no connection to Eritrea. Woyanies will use them as a trojan horse just like the old "low land groups" led by Omar Siraj and Mahmoud Lobinet who demanded autonomy within Ethiopia.
"Asmara, 27 July 2010 - As a result of its backward thinking leading to the illegal practice of jamming satellite channels which fully exposed such shameful acts, the TPLF regime has been banned from access to satellite service, according to reports.
"A media expert said that the TPLF regime’s attempts to muffle satellite channels with the technological backing of external forces constitutes a primitive act not to be expected from any entity that calls itself a ‘government’ in the 21st century. Such act of jamming is also a “manifestation of inferiority complex and lack of self-confidence,” the expert added."
i completely agree with you,.
"How can one person plays with the whole nation…
How by divide and rule religioues,regi onal,tribalism is
this and that enough to see divided people and see totaly
to see failed nation."
What you said above is the truth. I will ask you to consider the following facts:
1) Divisions you refer to, above, were not created by Isaias. He simply uses what already existed intelligently to his own advantage
2) The other side of the coin is that he is trying to create a new Nation by imposing a manufactured "Eritrean" identity, a blueprint of the EPLF/PFDJ.
'' I agree fully with writer of comment no 35 which criticizes the electrnic website of Meskerem pretender of main opposition site,.....................no any fundamental changes happened since EPDJ held power May 1991 up today, are the meskerem editors forgot the conspiracy of liquidation of ELF from the battle filed in conjuction with foriegn power when EPDJ were the cat's paw of America and western coutnries. so the opposition have the rights to convene conference anywhere else to topple EPDJ.''
THERE WAS ERITREAN PLF which was toppled by PFDJ. YOU ARE CONFUSING PFDJ WITH YOUR EPDJ. PFDJ has no E=Eritrean in it , therefor it is not ERITREAN . It is a P=people's whose people are part and parcel of La Grande TIGRAY. Never heard of a EPDJ , unless you know . Tell us more, PLEASE.
maitemanai forever....love yr comment
a nation of thousands of Maritiers.
" " Disabled fighters
" " Brave worriors
" " Intellectuals
How How by divide and rule religioues,regi onal,tribalism is
this and that enough to see divided people and see totaly
to see failed nation.
is it dream or reality what is going on in my country and beloved people.The Nation of hope for civilization and developement of full continent yesterday but, today changed to failed nation due to one person!
Samrawit
maitemenai
asmara
Ethiopian tv, which is a mouthpeace and organizer of the Eri opposition meeting in Addis, is off-air from the Arab-satelite leaving us in the dark about what is going on there in the name of Eritreans, too bad !!!!
"Thanks God, you are exposed. I didn't know that so much hatred was coming from a traditional enemy (ye Showa wenbediye)."
In above, Hagherawi makes two mistakes. First, Hagherawi assumes that I am "ye Showa wenbediye", whatever that means. Second, he commits an Ad Hominem fallacy (attacking the person rather than the argument).
Continued ...
I feel sorry for Meskerem.net, it seems they have lost some sleep and all they talk is about the meeting by labeling the participants all kinds of names like: Kehadti, Judas, Mahber Andnet...
If I had a chance, I would ask Meskerem.net this question: our government doesn't allow opposition parties in the country, it doesn't allow any kind of meeting that is not "cabinet of ministers", it doesn't allow the publication of press that is not "Gazeta Hadas Ertra",.....So what option do Eritreans have? Is it really fair to accuse compatriots for convening in Ethiopia when they are not allowed to do that in their own country? I advise Meskerem. net to put some logic to their erratic behaviors. They have become out of control.
whatever you are smoking pls stop it, no one imposed the eritrean identity on the eritrean people. its their wish, desire and will to be free and independent; eritrea and its brave people are going through hell but WE SHALL OVER COME. what you have said can be said about ethiopia (oromos, amharas, tegaru, ogaden have been fighting and killing each other but do you see any one questiong the viability of the nation), india, usa, china, russia have went through the same growing pain. eritrea and its brave people aren't alians from mars but humans thus there isn't nothing we won't over come and make a shining nation. AT LEAST WE HAVE A DREAM OF MAKING A SHINING ERITREA AND THE DREAM WILL NEVER DIE NO MATTER WHAT THE HATER, NAY SAYERS SAY. you can fight to change the regime in asmara but you will never kill the brave nation in africa.
It seems that it is only a half-full scenario which produces results, good or bad. It was a half-full glass which sold Eritrea to the Ethiopians, then it was the other half which initiated the war to liberate it. Now we the have the half-full glass which has been destroying the country for the last 20 years and by the looks of it - it is only the other half which will initiate a war to liberate it again. For some reason, full glasses never work for us, may be we were never meant to blend. Instead of complaining about half-fulls and what not - try to see what works and support it, regardless of it being full or half. The NCDC will work.
The effect of more than two generations of brainwashing is to become Deaf, Blind and Dumb. The elephant is sitting in the living room, but you refuse to see!
An authentic Nation is a voluntary union of individuals and communities which have a strong bond through shared religion, culture, identity and vision on how to live.
Can't you see that the "Nation" Eritrea is held together through the brutal fist of Isaias Afeworki? It is he who understood the natural fissures and fault lines that exist between the disparate religions, regions and ethnic groups in Eritrea. While using these fault lines to weaken potential enemies, at the same time he imposes a new and manufactured "Eritrean" identity.
He is an evil and callous, but deeply flawed, genius who has been at the right place at the right time most of the time.
You talked about Shaebia organization whether dumb or not, in opinion Shaebia was dumb from the beginning by setting up a permanent base in Nakfa-Sahle vicinities almost for thirty years. If Woyane was not around as mobile fighters, Shaebia could have been wiped out a long time ago by Derg forces. I am not saying Shaebia are not good fighters but they ware waiting to be prayed by enemies bombs the same areas every day. If Shaebia was a mobile fighters, may be the duration of the struggle could have been shorter. Shaebia was cut of from its main sources and all their training camps were empty and they could not replenish new forces. The same is true after independent they made so many gross mistakes to play the current world politics to help there causes and develop the state. Due to their worthless arrogance and rigid believe, they became the enemy of the world to their distraction and weakened the people of Eritrea.
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